Kaoru Ishikawa: Man of Vision Theresa Mueller BSOP 326 Professor Lee Thompson 17 September 2010 Kaoru Ishikawa: Man of Vision Kaoru Ishikawa stands among the giants of the Total Quality Management movement. Just like Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, and Crosby, Ishikawa made significant contributions that began the global shift toward awareness of the benefits to be realized from pursuing a policy of total quality management. He was an advocate for company-wide quality control activities, which he believed did not end when the product left the manufacturing line. Total quality management represents the holistic idea that every individual in the process is just as important as the overall process to realize success. The quality of the product, the after sales service, quality of management, the company itself and the human being are all integral parts of a successful total quality management organizational culture. In short, total quality management represents a movement, which is revolutionizing the way business is done in the industrialized world and Kaoru Ishikawa was one of the elite few that identified the possibilities; truly a man of vision. Primary Work and Significant Accomplishments Professor Ishikawa graduated in 1939 from the Engineering Department of Tokyo University, where he majored in Applied Chemistry. He earned his Doctorate of Engineering in 1960 and was promoted to Professor at the University, where he was subsequently awarded the Deming Prize, Nihon Keizai Press Prize; the Industrial Standardization Prize for his dissertations on Quality Control and the Grant Award in 1971 from the American Society for Quality Control for the education program he developed. This impressive list of scholarly achievements and recognitions reflect the distinctive contributions that Ishikawa made to the Total Quality Control movement during its